Gladys had dropped her mocking tone as the story unfolded. The realest love in her life was Hilltop, and she loved to talk about it. She saw the look in the twins’ eyes that she had hoped to see, and she smiled contentedly.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen, step this way if you please,” she went on with a return to her laughing manner. “We will now learn something of the present history of the school. We are now in the old building and, I might add, the only building to live in, but observe this green baize door. It leads to what is commonly called the new wing.”
She pushed it open with a contemptuous push, and they found themselves in a spick-and-span corridor of white woodwork and gleaming mahogany doors. In comparison to the old and stately paneled walls of the old building it seemed new indeed.
Several girls that the twins recognized came out of one of the rooms and stopped in mock surprise.
“Why, Gladys! Why, Prue! Why, Sally!” Louise Brown, a tall and lanky girl, and one of their own classmates, exclaimed. “Is it possible that you’ve come for a breath of fresh air to our light and sunny abode, after the mouldy shadows of yours?” she asked, smiling sweetly.
Gladys sighed, but it was Sally who answered.
“No,” she said in a bored tone, “we are simply showing Janet and Phyllis what to avoid in the future.”
The other girls laughed good-naturedly.
“That’s one on you, Sally,” Louise admitted, and one of the other girls exclaimed:
“Long live the rivalry between the old and the new at Hilltop!”